Musharraf banned the militant Kashmiri groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, both of which had played a role in a gun battle outside the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi a month earlier in which seven guards died.

The Indian official expressed frustration that the U.S. and other Western nations have drawn stark distinctions between al Qaeda and other terrorist networks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including the Haqqani network, Pakistani Taliban, and the militant groups that have targeted India such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.